Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Is There a Niche for YOU?

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Is Your Brand Current, Fresh and Visible?

March 18, 2011

It is important for luxury real estate marketing professionals to keep their brands current, fresh and visible. Here is an example from Dom Perignon. This photo we shot at our local wine store is the Dom Perignon Andy Warhol edition. This edition of the 2002 vintage features Warhol-like colored labels. Andy Warhol is best known for his portraiture of pop icons/culture like Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minelli, the Eight Elvises as well as Campbell soup cans. He is also known for coining the phrase, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

In one fell swoop, Dom Perignon has made itself visible, current and fresh! Certainly, Dom Perignon continues to have its moments of fame that have lasted many years and will continue for many years to come. What can you do to be current , fresh and Visible and insure that your moments of fame go beyond 15 minutes?

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Luxury Real Estate Personal Branding: There is Room at the Top

March 14, 2011

David Cook

Niche marketing is your sure route to market leadership as a luxury real estate marketing professional. When you are secure within your niche and stay focused there you will discover that other niche leaders are not really your competition. Therefore, there is plenty of room at the top.

Niche market leaders are not in competition with their counterparts. This is a very important concept to grasp. They only compete with others within their niche. See how this plays out in the American Idol competition.

While it is true that the American Idol contestant who survives with the most number of votes wins the big prize at the end of the show they may not be the big winners in the long run. Jennifer Hudson was voted off the show early on, but went on to win the Golden Globe and Academy Award for best supporting actress, plus multiple Grammy Awards. Doughtry and Adam Lambert have sold millions of records, achieving much more than the ones who won the contest in the same year.

In 2008 runner ups, David Archuleta and David Cook (who won the prize) went on to be very successful in their respective niches. Archuleta sold close to 1,000,000 copies of his first album to an adoring younger teenage fan base. The first post-Idol album of Cook, the rock singer/song writer, was certified Platinum. With completely different audiences were these two artists actually competitors outside of the Idol contest?

Historically, the contestants who were most clearly defined in their niches far exceeded their counterparts who were not. This year the niches are already sharply defined for many of the contestants. As a result, they have already won the game in terms of winning over their respective fans. If they stay within their niches and do not try to please everyone they should do very well.

We call this “staying on your brand signal”. For example, the deep voiced Scotty is the genuine country article. James is the unmistakable rocker and Jacob is rhythm & blues.

Sharply define your niche within the luxury real estate marketing arena and stay focused there. You will find that your counterparts in their respective niches are not your competition. They may even make great allies because there is plenty of room at the top.

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Three Luxury Real Estate Marketing Trends for 2011

December 28, 2010

Three emerging marketing trends are worth considering when you develop your 2011 luxury real estate marketing plan. They are 1) The return to snail mail vs. email or social media; 2) The direct approach of using the telephone to connect with prospective clients/customers, and; 3) Consumers are seeking intrinsic value vs. status symbols when purchasing luxury goods. Collectively they represent a larger trend in consumer behavior: Contrarian and independent thinking!

The Return to Snail Mail

24-35 year olds are increasing choosing to connect with their peers, family and business prospects through fine greeting cards and other upscale stationery products. The stationery goods market is a $37.4 billion dollar industry that is not going away any time soon as we move increasingly to digital communication. In an over-communicated world a personal note still shows you care and is a good way to differentiate yourself from your competition. This is contrarian thinking.

The Direct Telephone Call

Over 81 million smart phones sold world-wide in the third quarter of 2010, according to the analysts at Gartner. That is almost twice as many as a year earlier. You would think that more people would use them to make more smart phone calls.

Surprisingly, Google, of all companies, understands the importance of the direct telephone call. They now have a huge sales force that reaches out to local small to mid-size businesses directly by telephone. According to BIA /Kelsey, local businesses will spend about $20 billion online this year in advertising. That number could increase to $35 billion by 2014.

An alarming number of luxury real estate agents do not respond to email in a timely manner, let alone return their phone calls consistently. How can you differentiate yourself from your competition by being more responsive with your telephone calls?

Intrinsic Value vs. Status Symbols in Luxury Goods

High net worth consumers are recovering from frugal fatigue and they are now out spending more. But, they are looking for intrinsic value. No longer can luxury brands get away with hyping the symbol of their brand a means of satisfying the consumer’s need of self-expression to impress others. The goods have to have the goods. Hype no longer sells to luxury consumers who are thinking more independently.

Are you spending your valuable time and money marketing luxury real estate properties that are based on their intrinsic value? Or, are you allowing sellers to dictate unrealistic inflated prices? Luxury consumers are much savvier now, due to the overwhelming amount of information at their finger tips online. Let your competitors work with sellers who are not in tune with the new luxury real estate buyer.

Be a contrarian and think independently! That is what your luxury real estate clients are responding to now.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Romancing Your Marketplace

August 9, 2010

As a luxury real estate marketing professionals you can steadily increase readership of your blog by expressing your personal views about what it is like to live and play in your area, your local marketplace. Expressing your voice, your viewpoint is what will make your blog interesting and will attract your readers to do business with you. People like doing business with people like themselves. It is, therefore, important to express your personal point of view so other with the same values can identify with you. We call this “romancing your marketplace”. Here is an example.

One of our favorite attractions here in Santa Barbara County is the Carpinteria Salt Marsh Nature Park. The park encompasses 110 acres of prime ocean front land, and is reserved as a sanctuary for rare and endangered plants, birds and wildlife. It is located within a few blocks from our home. The trails of the salt marsh, that we love exploring, meander through the estuaries that lead to the beach.

Chaparral Mallow

This Sunday, as we walked to the beach, we saw a blue heron preening his feathers, a snow white egret fishing on the banks of the waterway, a couple of cottontail bunnies hopping along our trail, and a family of mallards gliding on the water. One of the paths was bordered with a riot of pinkish purple blooms on silvery bushes called chaparral mallows, which are native to the California seaside. On Saturday mornings, there are docents present for those who like guided tours.

The reason potential clients and referral sources follow your blog is because it speaks to their interests and values. The connection and often the referral happens when they find out that you love wildlife, nature walks or the environment too, not necessarily when you tell them about the latest real estate statistics.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Follow That Poodle!

July 15, 2010

As a luxury marketing professional one of the great ways to promote your marketplace is to report on the local festivities. For example, we are planning to go to the Annual French Festival in Santa Barbara, Saturday and Sunday, July 17 & 18 (Bastille Day Weekend), from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Santa Barbara's Oak Park. This is the 23rd annual event, and they are expecting over 20,000 people to attend. Admission is Free.

Some of the highlights include, a poodle parade, French chefs preparing typical French delicacies both savory and sweet. French beer and wines as well as champagne will be available. Also, former French colonies will be represented such as Vietnam (French Indochina) as well as Morocco and French Polynesia.

Forty acts on three stages will feature continuous entertainment of music, dancing (can-can), as well as cabaret style (Edith Piaf) to name a few. If you love anything French, it is a great opportunity to meet people, join a French speaking club, and learn about interesting trips to France. There will be a drawing to win a trip to Paris or Tahiti.

Another way to promote YOU is to be a sponsor for one of these events. The sponsors are always promoted and appreciated by the organizers who have large spheres of influence and may become your ardent referral sources. Or, you could always volunteer to help at the event.

So, follow that poodle and get involved in local community events. It is fun and also good for your luxury real estate marketing practice.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Focus is the Name of the Game

June 8, 2010

Ursula Burns, Chairman and CEO --Courtesy of Xerox

The imperative to re-invent yourself as a luxury real estate marketing professional has never been greater. The competition for attention on the internet now requires that you declare a highly focused , sharply defined “brand position”. To stand out from the crowd, you must stake a claim to an uncontested market niche and offer an extraordinary promise of value. Your claim to market leadership must be based on something that you can do better than anyone else in your marketplace. Now more than ever, focus is the name of the game in luxury real estate marketing.

For decades Xerox was focused on one thing: plain-paper photocopying. Xerox was one of the first brand names to become a verb, just as the verb “to FedEx” has come to mean ship overnight. Although Xerox still “owns” the top-of-mind status in the prduct category of plain-paper copiers, the status has become less and less relevant in light of the transition of documents between the paper and digital worlds. This fundamental shift necessitated that Xerox completely reinvent itself and reposition the brand in the minds of its target market and substantial customer base.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Xerox worked to transform its product offering into a service. Xerox began providing a complete "document service" to companies including supply, maintenance, configuration, and user support. Customers became clients. To reinforce this image, the company introduced a corporate signature, "The Document Company" above its primary logo. However, at this time documents still meant ink on paper.

In 2008, Xerox changed its logo again to a red sphere and a white X with three grey stripes. The change is meant to shift the emphasis of the company’s focus from plain-paper document photocopying to digital document management and solutions.

On July 1, 2009, another change occurred in Xerox. Ursula Burns became the first African American woman to head a company the size of Xerox. Under Ms. Burn’s leadership, in February 2010, Xerox acquired Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. transforming Xerox into the world’s leader in business process and digital document management.

With this acquisition, Xerox now processes over one million credit card applications and twelve million student loans each year. They also provide HR (human resources) services for more than 4.4 million employees and retirees annually. Xerox’s extraordinary new promise of value is to “help our customers reach new levels of efficiency and effectiveness, giving them the freedom to focus on what matters most: their real business”.

From product oriented to service oriented, from paper documents to digital document management and out-sourced business processes Xerox has undergone an astonishing metamorphisis, a total shift in focus.

What will be your new focus, your new claim, your new extraordinary promise of value? Focus is the name of the luxury real estate marketing game.

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